


Onions, Ogres, and Cake

by cryogenia



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human/Troll Society (Homestuck), Alternate Universe - Recently Colonized Earth, Ashen Romance | Auspistice, Body Horror, Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, Canon-Typical Violence, Developing Relationship, Flashbacks, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, M/M, Multi, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Past Abuse, Polyamory, Scars, Troll Culture (Homestuck), Xeno, aka troll version of polyamory, also gross animal behavior, also human and troll cross cultural misunderstandings, canon-typical caste discrimination, implied/referenced PTSD, implied/referenced manic depressive disorder, mention of quadsharing, not really - Freeform, of the mild variety, on-screen self mutilation, see again, very oblique mention of animal death not on screen, warnings for
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-10 18:43:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15297669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cryogenia/pseuds/cryogenia
Summary: Moving out (and then in) with your boyfriend was hectic enough. Living with his two other boyfriends - all three of them an alien species - that's what took the proverbial cake. "Nobody ever told you there'd be nights like these", as they sing on Hatefriends.Your name is Dave Strider, and you'd really just like to know what's going on.





	1. 01

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SleepingDragons](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepingDragons/gifts).



It’s only 10am but the sun is ahead of its game, chasing you down like a hard-boiled detective with a bad reputation and nothing to lose. Even in the alley where there’s theoretical shade the pavement reflects heat like an Easy Bake Oven. You’ve even rolled up your sleeves at the wrist in deference to the sky orb’s vengeance. It doesn’t amount to jack shit. Your underwear is wet, your underarms are wet, and the rest of you is dry as a campus hipster’s cappuccino. 

It’s still not Texas though, so that counts for everything.

The houses on Sullivan Street are all at the cross of Ramshackle and Rundown but the troll cat lady next door tries to keep things nice. You breeze through her explosion of blackberries to cut through her backyard, giving her the traditional head-tilt as you pass. Sometimes you feed her five million cats--excuse you, ‘purrbeasts’-- in exchange for her not giving a shit about anything ever. The thistle minefield in your backyard is still encroaching on her side and you should probably fix that, but fucked if you’re going to do chores in this weather. The cheapskate landlord’s shitty manual mower is abandoned on its side halfway through the middle of the yard. It looks like they got two passes done and then rage quit, which is as the kids say, a big fucking mood.

The back door to Karkat’s place is technically the front, on account of the mud room leading into Karkat’s kitchen. The whole house is divided into questionably sound apartments, two up top and two below. Karkat’s is the lower right, Jenga’d beneath the studio you think is rented to an artist. You hope. She comes and goes at all hours of the day with canvases and big questionable garbage sacks, so she’s either an artist or a serial killer. Thankfully, she’s quiet either way. The other two neighbors you’ve seen all of once, a brown troll and a crimson (you’ve been instructed never to call ‘red’. Okay.) The brown might literally live in the basement. His entrance is a side cellar and you’ve heard him there banging things while you’ve used the laundry.

You make it to the back porch and run up the sagging, slanted steps which do their best to throw you. Not today, stairs. The back door is similarly sketchy but you’ve learned its ways. An immediate rush of blessed, blessed  _ air conditioning  _ pours out from the kitchen and you fling yourself in bodily. It’s like full frontal from a snow cone.

You sling your backpack into the corner under the table, shivering as the frigid air slaps your sweaty back. You will give a shit about homework later. Right now you sneak up on the fridge and give it a quick jerk open. Nothing tumbles out. Even better, your sweet jug of AJ is still there where you left it. Holy shit, hell fucking yes. You’re not sure you’ll ever be over that miracle. 

You take a good, satisfying pull off that refreshing chill until the quart is completely drained and pop it in the recycling bin. Here, you don’t have to hoard your bottles for potable water. You kick off your heelies and switch into socks mode. 

Beyond the kitchen, the living room is dark. The fridge schedule says Karkat’s still at work, but this time of day, you’re never sure who else is awake. You shift onto the balls of your feet and ninja across the threshold - 

And pause.

If the kitchen was refreshingly chilly, the living room is  _ Arctic _ . Sincerely fucking freezing, in a way you’re not quite sure you’re cool with. (Ha. Ha.) Every hair stands up on the backs of your arms and you draw them closer instinctively, yet a certain someone doesn’t seem fucked about it at all.

Eridan is laid out on the living room couch, asleep directly in the blast radius of the window A/C like it ain’t no thing. There’s an extra blanket, or maybe a cape, wadded all the way around the unit in an attempt to block out even more of the outside than the existing little foam insulation-y bit. The cape that he’s normally wearing (which you still cannot believe is a sentence that exists) is a violet puddle on the floor. As for the rest of him… 

Eridan is wearing the least you’ve ever seen him, no rings, no layers. Not even a pretentious hairdo. He’s rocking nothing but his sunglasses, a little pair of navy shorts, the weirdly tight kind like he’s going to play a Sports Ball, and a very eye-searing, very familiar neon pink shirt that _ you  _ had bought at Goodwill. The thing was a true bargain basket find, $2 because somebody had cut it into an awkward triangle. It shows off every one of his gills, six slits on either side of his chest.

He’s also baring a constellation of silvery scars, mostly on his legs but a few up higher. All sizes and angles, some raised and some flatter. And damn. You aren’t one to pry into a dude’s shit, but that is some history just begging for a crowbar. There’s one on his thigh that looks like a misplaced gill, just a big ol’ flap of skin hanging down. Another arc of pin pricks looks almost like a bite mark. If the thing biting you had concentric teeth.

You rub your face, considering. The quietest way to get through a room is always to hang close to the furniture. Shift your weight near a heavier object and the floorboards won’t make noise. At the same time,  _ someone is on the couch. _

Back home, that would have been an attack of opportunity. Back home -

Whatever brilliant plan you were clearly going to devise dies a miserable death because the couch itself suddenly creaks. Eridan is tipping his glasses up to peek at you.

“Did you w-want somethin’?” he asks, like a total douchebag.

You snort.

“My shirt?” you suggest. You figure he’s up; you might as well ask.

Eridan tilts his head.

“It w-was in the laundry?”

“It’s amazing how that continues to not make things yours,” you say.

All the trolls have this issue where they wear whatever, like sizes and ownership are a vague suggestion. Eridan in particular has a habit of picking up whatever strikes his fancy, Sollux’s jeans or Karkat’s sweaters, and apparently now, your shirts. Maybe it’s supposed to be cute in troll-speak. Like cats rubbing on your stuff, or shredding it, or whatever cats do. You weren’t exactly raised with either trolls or cats. (Most of your knowledge comes from Rose and/or the internet, the definition of unreliable sources.) 

And yeah, it’s not like you’re planning to wear that shirt right now (or possibly ever). You were mainly going to use it for a comic because the graphic on the front is truly inspired: a series of neon geometric shapes, a drunk cartoonist’s impression of palm tree, and the word ‘KENTUCKY’ scrawled diagonally in cursive letters. It’s impossible to tell if it’s peak 80’s aesthetic or ironic 80’s shitpost; either way, it’s a gift.

“I was going to scan that,” you tell him. Which you shouldn’t have to explain, because it is  _ your _ shirt. Are you going to have to give this fool The Skeptical Eyebrow?

Eridan takes off his sunglasses and sets them on the milk crate that passes for your coffee table. (Karkat’s the only one who believes in coffee, but nonetheless, you have a table. That’s how these things work.) There’s a tiny image flickering on the inside of the lenses, a gaggle of trolls in varying states of undress and/or dismemberment. New Projectacles then; how and why, who the fuck knows. Eridan just  _ has _ money, which makes you feel even less guilty about claiming what’s yours.

You hold out a hand.

“Fine, hold your musclebeasts,” Eridan yawns.

He stretches like he’s lost all the bones in his spine, hips arched at an angle that makes your face tingle a little. You try not to stare at the sudden crackle of lights down his fins and belly, either. You’ve seen that Eridan’s face and neck glow blue sometimes, that bioluminescent stuff like deep sea fishes have. Apparently that uh. Goes all the way down. Like, beneath the waistband of the pants and up the insides of the thighs, everywhere that the scarring isn’t.

You wonder if you’re supposed to read something into that, like if it’s a hunting thing or a camouflage thing, or a ‘come-fuse-and-become-my-new-genitals’. Honestly there’s a lot you don’t know about fish, both in general and Eridan specifically.

Eridan is Karkat’s friend from “the bad old days”, which Karkat says were ‘drama’ yet tellingly never rants about. Eridan just turned up one night with a dufflebag and taped-together glasses. Apparently Karkat hadn’t told anybody they were texting which had caused some additional drama (there’s still a burn mark from when Sollux had found out) but then Karkat had dumped out the hamper. All three of them had sat in the socks and somehow that had fixed it. You are Karkat’s kissing-boyfriend and Eridan is Karkat’s face-touch boyfriend, and Sollux gives shit to everyone equally, which apparently is kinky even if no squishy bits are touching. And Eridan’s been crashing full time ever since, in a way that’s less like crashing and more like paying an equal share of rent, even though he only has this one place to sleep.

Which...has you right back around to feeling bad about the shirt. Damn it.

“I guess I could do something else,” you offer. You suppose you don’t have to draw right now. You have a practice exam to deal with, and if you want to churn out a comic, Sweet Bro at McDonaldals will do. Last time the audience saw Their Heroes, Geromy was wandering lost in Fry Heaven. Hella Jeff was ordering combos to save him. It was lit.

Eridan shakes his head.

“It’s w-whatever,” he says, once again, like he is the one being inconvenienced. Goddamn it, why do the hot ones always have to be assholes?  At least you do the world a favor by being an asshole while ugly.

Eridan sits up and crosses his arms in front of him in one fluid motion, peeling the tee into his lap. It reveals an even broader mass of scars over his collarbone, thicker, like tectonic faults in his skin. You have your own keloiding, but shit. These make your raised cuts seem baby smooth. They’re ragged and angry and nearly as fat as the tip of your pinky. The thick one down his heartline makes you wince.

“How-w w-was your thing?” Eridan asks after an awkward beat. He fiddles with your shirt looking slightly remorseful now and double-damn it, he’s actually trying  _ not _ to be an asshole, which is worse. See, if he were a dick 100% of the time then you could point and laugh, but he ruins it by being an arrogant fuck, catching himself, and then attempting to correct it. It’s like he’s assembling how to be a decent person out of an instruction manual. Shit, Karkat probably wrote him one.

“ _ STEP THREE, FUCKTRUCK: ASK ABOUT OTHER TROLLS’ ACTIVITIES. YES, WE KNOW NOBODY GIVES A SHIT, BUT IT’S NICE TO BE HUMORED. AND DESPITE THE IMMENSE GRAVITATIONAL PULL OF YOUR EGO, YOU ARE NOT THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE. YOUR ARROGANCE RATES A DWARF PLANET AT BEST. _ ”

You decide to cut him some slack.

“The thing was a thing,” you answer sagely. You shrug. “Learned about probability. Binned all the outliers and gave Georg his walking papers. Gonna take data on John’s shitty standup and map a hysterio-gram.”

Honestly, your GED class is ‘w-whatever’ too. Most of your classmates are older dudes who work nights on janitorial. They’re nice, you just…can’t relate. There they are all having jobs and going outside and generally being fully functional humans. Meanwhile you’re proud if you get to class twice a week and wear a socially acceptable amount of underwear. 

A gunshot rings out and you both whip around, hands and claws both at the ready. It resolves into the side door, which is open at the far end of the living room. Sollux stumbles through carrying a stack of at least six empty pizza boxes.

“ED, just give him his fucking shirt,” Sollux says, which answers the perennial questions of ‘was he awake’ and ‘was he eavesdropping’?  Sollux’s schedule is even more of a mystery than Karkat’s. Sollux sleeps (question mark?) when he deems it critical to avoid death and complains about being tired the rest of the time, except when he’s manic in which case Aradia has to come over and ambush him. She dunks him face first in the sleepy slime with her floaty powers.

(You like Sollux’s girlfriend. She helped you bury a possum in the right place to get cleaned by scavengers and doesn’t mind that you call her shit ‘floaty powers’.)

Eridan curls his lip like a pissed off puppy, baring one single fang in Sollux’s direction. You try very sincerely not to laugh. You think he’s trying to be tough when he does that, but mostly it looks like he’s smelling a shit.

“I w-was doin’ it!” Eridan says.

He pulls back on your shirt like a slingshot and sends it flying at Sollux’s head. It snaps out straight and freezes in mid air, surrounded by a thundercloud of miniature red and blue sparks.

“Horns down,” Sollux says, which apparently means ‘heads up’ because the shirt does a loop de loop and rockets back in your general direction. You snatch it out of the air and do a discrete side-step to discharge yourself on the metal grill of the air conditioner.

You appreciate your man Sollux, but damned if he doesn’t generate some static cling.

Sollux sets the pizza boxes down on the aquarium in the corner and pops open the mesh door on top. The 60 gal came from a fish guy on Craigslist but it’s never held any water. It’s been converted into a whacked-out alien terrarium, complete with glowing violet mushrooms and eight inches of crumbly, ruby-red dirt.

Inside, the datagrubs chitter and swarm toward the opening.  Sollux distracts them by dropping in one of the weird yellow peppers that pizza places always insist on including in the box.

Eridan squints in the general direction of the tank.

“Hey, is my mod ready yet?” he asks.

Sollux prods at a few of the critters, nudging them this way and that. Personally, you couldn’t tell them apart. They’re basically what you’d get if a pillbug had a hot date with a giant isopod, then added extra feelers for an especially good time. Sollux knows them all by name.

“Glitch and Nugget are up here, and I see the newbies. I think yours is still underground pupating,” Sollux calls back over his shoulder. “Unless somebody ate it.”

He grins in the general direction of the air conditioner.

“Violets are delicate little snowflakes, don’t you know.”

Eridan flicks his fins and holds two fingers up around his nose in a ‘v’. Sollux claps back by pretending to bite two of his own fingers. You would ask the translation, except the meaning is pretty transparent.

“What about my dude,” you ask Sollux instead.

Sollux picks up one of the smaller grubs and rotates it around. Its carpet of olive legs ripples frantically.

“Yeah, I think this is...what did you call it?”

“SCOTUS,” you confirm.

You incline your head and coo.

“Aw, who’s a good head of the judicial branch?  Is it you? Are you upholding colonial democracy?”

Eridan makes a confused noise and you snicker. Trolls are so anal about their naming conventions and yet at the same time so easy to exploit. As long as it’s six characters long you can basically convince them to accept anything. You also had a Barack for a while, but then he pupated into a Slaystation controller.

Sollux finishes dumping the unwanted pizza peppers into the grub tank, then dumps the boxes themselves on the floor. You wince. Karkat, who works third shift in a university dishroom, has very particular thoughts and feelings about food trash. Very loud feelings.

“Kar is goin’ to lose his shit,” Eridan warns, while also not making any motions to help. Sollux chucks an entire tub of unwanted garlic sauce at him in rebuttal.

“Oh hell no,” you say. Throwing shirts is one thing, you have a real picture of that fucker hitting the wall and making it rain the wrong way.

You triple-step into the fray and intercept that projectile mid-air like the Sports Champion you are. Yes, you handle the balls and block the shots and squeeze the point man to the wall.

(Another thing you never learned much about: sports for non-ironic purposes.)

“So yeah, this looks like a bad time,” you say, shaking the little plastic tub.

(Ugh, why do pizza places put these in there too?  No one in the history of ever wants to dip perfectly good pizza in rancid garlic butter. Unless they’re fighting some secret vampire date night conspiracy, in which case, godspeed.)

“You guys want to weird-flirt, get a Lego block or whatever. Maybe grow out some pigtails and then you can pull on them. Like maybe it’s flag football and they yank it so you get to tackle them. Penalty for offsides, somebody cuts an inch. Okay, I don’t know how football works but anyway food fights are illegal.”

Neither of them seems to be paying much attention to what you’re saying, though. They’re both looking at you and they’re wearing identical starry-eyed little grins, and oh Christ. This is that thing again, isn’t it?  Where they mess around a little too much and then somehow you get in the middle of it, only that’s what they want? Either one, through raw strength, could rip you in half. And despite it - maybe  _ because  _ of it - they still say they like you.

You get that guilty little thrill down the center of your belly and hey, how about that put itself on hold, call back when you are a Productive Member of Society?  You are barely qualified to be a human being, let alone a sexy-relationship-counsellor thing for an entirely different species.

One of the datagrubs breaks the hormone party by jumping out the terrarium entirely. Sollux swears and stuffs it back down with the lid like he’s plunging a toilet.

“Before you close that,” Eridan calls out.

He reaches down and physically  _ rips the skin flap off his leg _ .

The world maybe goes a out of focus for a bit.

The room sways and you rock with it, one foot at a 45 degree angle like you’re surfing on the bus. Keep your knees unlocked and your core tight, otherwise you’ll sit down like you’re falling down. You jab your hands deep in your pockets. You don’t have anything else to  _ do _ with them. There’s no blood (why is there no blood?) but Eridan’s skin is still hanging from his own hand and you can’t look down. You can’t look at his legs you can’t look down you don’t want to see that -

(One time on the roof you were fucking around with scooters and Bro said something that made you laugh so hard you got RC Cola up your nose, it was your fondest memory but then you’d crashed and wiped out and his wheel had gone over you so bad it had looked like he’d peeled you, and he was still laughing and so you’d kept laughing and the whole time you were holding your own flesh -)

You watch in slow motion as Eridan pitches the chunk of skin overhand like a fucked-up streamer, a long stripe of gray that keeps going and going. It touches down right in the grub tank.

They descend on it like they haven’t eaten in weeks and nope. Nope nope nope.

Somewhere very far away, both Eridan and Sollux are clicking. That’s the noise they make when they cheer. 

“Nice,” Sollux says, which. Holy shit. You know they’re supposed to be in that hate-date relationship but this feels extreme even for that. Casual mutilation. Wow.

You never know how much is real and how much was in Bro’s head but you do know trolls are supposed to be violent. Psychopathic killers, the demon plague from outer space; the Rooftop Resistance was meant to prepare you to fight them if necessary. This is the first time you’re actually seeing the threat. 

You’re still gripping your proverbial handle trying desperately not to fly off when Sollux turns to face you. Eridan sits up even straighter and his lights are twinkling like landing lights on his face. You focus on the blue stripes leading toward his mouth and not…not anything lower. Yes.

“I’ll see that and raise you this one,” Sollux says. He takes his dorky John Lennon glasses off and.

Wait.

For the first time you realize something’s off with Sollux too. A silvery line is running laterally across the middle of his face, a scar that wasn’t there a week ago. You know because you and Karkat drew on Sollux’s face when he fell asleep on the toilet (after claiming he was ‘totally awake, fuck you guys, we can watch one more episode’). And you’d expected the black-ink dicks to fade, yeah. But come to think of it, Sollux doesn’t shower that often. When you look at Sollux now, his jaw is both doodle  _ and _ acne-free. 

“Check this shit out,” Sollux says. He reaches back like he’s taking his glasses off again, only this time he peels off the top half of his fucking face, revealing...completely normal, clean gray skin beneath it.

What the ever-loving fuck.

Sollux holds up what you hope is a very clever sleep mask. He presses it back over his eyes and uh. No, no that is very much a hunk of skin, only what’s underneath is (thankfully) also skin, and you have next to no clue what is going on. 

“I call bee ess,” Eridan says. He sounds both annoyed and impressed, which isn’t any different from his typical attitude toward Sollux. “You cut that. You’re not gonna tell me you w-woke up that w-way.”

Sollux gives him the biggest shit eating grin of all time.

“Believe it!” Sollux says, and actually, horribly does a Naruto pose. Because of course he had a Naruto phase. Of course.

Eridan groans like he’s been strangled and throws another random piece of skin from somewhere. You risk a glance down finally and yup. Right on the outside of Eridan’s thigh there’s now this perfect patch of silvery gray, free from blemishes and scars. It’s even a slightly darker shade.  

You make a desperate T with your hands.

“Okay can we pause for a motherfuckin’ time out for the human,” you say. “Put that simmering hate on the backburner. You got the pot cooking but it started to boil over, now the fire alarm is going off and Gordon Ramsey is in the kitchen. He’s got two pieces of bread and he’s asking, ‘are you an idiot sandwich’, only plot twist, the idiot is me, because I have no idea what’s going on.”

They both stare. Okay, so you ramble when you get nervous. So sue and/or ‘legislacerate’ you. You clarify by waving at Sollux’s everything. 

“Did you seriously  _ peel off your face _ ?”

“Oh,” Sollux says. He blinks at you. “Yes?”

“It’s molten season,” Eridan explains. “I guess. This planet is fuckin’ boilin’ all the time.”

“Very special snowflakes,” Sollux teases. Eridan flips him off the human way this time. 

“Molten or moult _ ing _ ?” you ask, fighting against your own accent too. You’re pretty sure you know the answer, but with the general advent of this nonsense, you figure you ought to check. 

“M-o-u-l-t-i-n-g,” Eridan spells out. “It means sheddin’. Like with birds.”

You pinch the bridge of your nose.

“Right, I get that, but. You mean your skin just goddamn falls off.”

Sollux scratches the back of one wrist. Which, now that you’re paying attention, is that slightly darker gray as well. 

“Engh, usually you have to pull it. It gets all bullshit and flaky.”

“Thank you so much for that mental image,” you tell him. 

“You’re welcome.”

“It’s just annoyin’ and it takes a w-while,” Eridan says. He smooths down the ragged edge of what you now know to be a hole in his thigh. “Mine used to come in the Second Bright Season, but your stupid planet gets hot tw-wice a sw-weep.”

“I was First Bright,” Sollux says. “Which doesn’t fit with the aesthetic, but since when does biology care what I want?”

He taps his doubled horns.

“Mothergrub Nature’s a bitch and then she has barkfiends.”

Sollux points at the tank where the little monsters are still swarming over their unspeakable snack. 

“These dipshits love it though. Even though it’s not that good for them. ”

Eridan makes a displeased noise. 

“W-what the fuck, w-why did you let me feed it to my mod then?” he complains.

Sollux’s psionics mean you can’t tell if he’s rolling his eyes. To compensate, he helpfully rolls his entire head.

“It’s not going to  _ hurt _ them,” he says. “It’s just not that great. Skin’s mostly collagen. It’s like living off junk food.”

“ _ You  _ live off junk food,” Eridan points out, which is fair. Sollux is banned from going to Costco by himself because he’s been known to come back with nothing but pizza rolls. “W-when you die they’re gonna use you as a preservative.”

Sollux sticks out his tongue and tosses his face-mask at Eridan and yup, okay, this has officially escalated from regular-whack into ‘mad’. Garlic sauce is one thing. This shit is a whole new level of nightmares that you’re oh-so-not excited to explore. Knowing your luck, Lil’ Cal will be there. 

“Aight well, I’m out. Keep drugs, stay cool, don’t do school,” is all you say, and ollie. the. fuck. out.

Eridan makes some kind of noise behind you but you are already on a collision course for Karkat’s room with no intent to stop. You barrel through the doors at the far end of the living room and close them very tight behind you. 

Now that you’re alone, you are free to flip out with dignity. 

You pull out your craptop with shaky hands and scroll through your chumlog. Most of your friends aren’t online, and the ones that are are mostly useless. Terezi would know but she won’t tell you the truth. John is your best bro but he is also an idiot all of the time. Jade grew up on a private fucking island. She’s barely more socialized than you.

Which leaves at best a certain snarky broad who will absolutely give you the business but at least she’ll be accurate about it. You are prepared to listen sit through several graphs and even a PowerPoint if she can clear some shit up.

**\-- turntechGodhead** ** [TG] ** **began pestering tentacleTherapist** ** [TT] ** **\--** ****  
  
**TG: rose**   
**TG: so hey rose**   
**TG: is troll shedding like**   
**TG: a thing that everyone knows but just doesnt talk about**   
**TG: like those tampon commercials where they pour blue liquid**   
**TG: theres a smiling middle aged lady in this sterile room**   
**TG: and shes talking about freshness with pictures of grass**   
**TG: all the while in the background theyre pouring that liquid**   
**TG: we know what the liquid is**   
**TG: do not believe her lies**   
**TG: i guess what im asking is**   
**TG: do you have to shuck your girlfriend**   
**TT: If you’re referring to moulting, yes, it does appear to be the season. Kanaya has not started yet, but she has been fairly uncomfortable.**   
**TT: I get the sense that the process itself is not why you are agitated, though.**   
**TG: i dont know**   
**TG: sollux did casually rip off his face**   
**TG: i think im allowed a little agitation**   
**TT: That does sound rather alarming. Particularly if you were not expecting it.**   
**TG: yeah its not like i google dudes pulling their faces off**   
**TG: i mean if i were a serial killer maybe i would be and this could be my fucking wet dream**   
**TG: maybe im a hipster serial killer**   
**TG: sustainable free range skin suits out of troll bits**   
**TT: Leaving that fascinating tangent aside, let me ask you this: are you more concerned because you feel pressured to be knowledgeable about troll biology due to your partners, or are you embarrassed on a meta level?**   
**TT: You specifically cited something “that everyone knows” ahead of any body horror revulsion or disgust.**   
**TG: hey dont get me wrong it was plenty disgusting**   
**TG: but shit where would i get off saying that**   
**TG: we leak from pretty much every orifice on the regular**   
**TG: have you ever thought about snot**   
**TT: Yes, but you seemed most curious if this behavior was an open secret or alien to all humans, yourself included.**   
**TT: Could it be you are projecting a generalized FOMO - fear of missing out - onto this specific situation?  Based on your unique situation of being raised by extremists.**   
**TG: look i was just curious okay**   
**TG: im well aware theres all sorts of shit most people understand**   
**TG: im just trying to figure out what im dealing with**   
**TT: An admirable sidestep to my question.**   
**TG: i do my best**   
**TT: Soon you’ll be leading square dance sessions at the senior center.**   
**TG: now thats harsh**   
**TT: Anyway, to follow the conceit: from what I’ve seen, your analogy to menstruation is not without merit. Although moulting does not appear to have the same scurrilous associations with taboo and pollution, it is not typically discussed.**   
**TT: Perhaps a better analog would be human skin care routines. While one might certainly use a rasp to sand off calluses, it’s not something you’d see fit to report on. You would not bring up intimate details of your pedicure in casual conversation.**   
**TG: okay that helps**   
**TG: i guess**   
**TT: If it makes you feel better, consider that at our current national birth rate, approximately ten thousand people learn something for the first time each day.**   
**TT: You are not especially unusual.**   
**TG: yeah we outliers gotta stick together**   
**TG: i think im going to officially not give a shit and work on some comics**   
**TT: Understood.**   
**TT: Please know I am here for you when you decide to resume your crisis.**   


You close your computer and set it aside, curling up around your knees. You don’t pick up your tablet.  

Your name is Dave Strider and once again, you feel like the only person on this planet who doesn’t know what’s going on.


	2. 02

Karkat bumps in somewhere around two, carrying a brown cardboard takeout box, his apron, and a chip on his shoulder the size of a small moon as per usual.

“Holy fuck, no offense, but whoever decided to annex this festering boil of a planet must have been stepped on as a wiggler. Some pan-fried shovelface came here to this polluted, boiling rock where it’s bright 14 hours out of 24, infested with flying rainbowdrinker hell insects, and said, why yes, this is a place we should mark for leisure development. The shining bronzed turd in Her Imperial Crotchetyness’ trophy block. She’s going to love all these fucking mosquitos on slaycations.”

He pauses only briefly for air.

“Actually, full offense. How did you tool-using shit slingers evolve opposable thumbs but not a universal standard for air conditioning?  Fucking management tried to give us a _clip-on_ whirling blade device. Like that’s going to do to shit next to an industrial robotsink. Other than spray resifluid steam in my face, increasing the humidity and the likelihood I’m going to smash the sanitizer with my bare hands, exploding the boiler and killing us instantly.”

You smile at him over the edge of your laptop.

“Hi to you too.”

You flip back to Paint and rock that control-save on your latest panel. You’ve managed to get a fair amount done in spite of yourself, given a little time and breathing space. Karkat’s ‘room’ is technically the north half of the living room, subdivided by a pair of French doors. Why anybody would want doors with windows on the inside of a house, you don’t know. Probably the cheapest possible way the landlord could find to make it a ‘two bedroom’ and charge you all double the money.

Karkat added contact paper to all the panes though, both on the door and the exterior windows, and it gives you the weirdly cozy sense of floating in your own bubble. The diffuse light coming in from outside is not too dim, not too blinding. Perfect compromise for a poor diurnal tropical ape.

Helps one calm the proverbial tits.

Karkat dumps his stuff on the side table and piles onto the bed with you. The mattress dips under his weight but he doesn’t come any closer than that. He always waits and makes sure you’ve seen him before he goes in for the smooch, even if you are sitting right the fuck there and talking to him. God, you are so gay for this idiot.

You put down your stylus and offer a fist bump as a distraction. When he leans in for it, you give him a surprise peck on the cheek.

Trolls don’t blush, but Karkat makes that happy-chirp sound. Aw yiss, who is the master at Romance?  It’s you.

“So, how goes the ultimate showdown of ultimate destiny?” you ask, thinking of Karkat’s theoretical ‘How to Social’ book. He would probably call it ‘Conversation for Pisspants Wigglers’. It would sell a million copies to shut-ins and fish trolls everywhere.

Karkat flops his head back until it smacks the wall.

“Fan-fucking-tastic,” he says, in a tone that means anything but. “If by fantastic you mean, I had to teach someone _with an allergy_ what cross-contamination means.”

“Ouch,” you say in sympathy. Talk about Rose’s _un_ lucky ten thousand. At least your own ignorance hasn’t gotten anyone killed. (That you know about.)

Karkat nods.

“I mean, Mothergrub’s putrefying slimeslick on toast. I put you on front-of-house and you try to tell me you can consolidate from the scrambled eggs to the vegan shit because that’s just ‘fake eggs’. No shit, Sherlock Holehead, it’s tofu because some species can’t eat grub protein!  We serve out of a separate fucking kitchen for a good goddamn reason. Of course, what else do we expect from a guy who drank OJ for nine sweeps and thought it was supposed to ‘burn like that’? Compulsory newsfeeding alert, most beings do not experience ‘the citrus sweats’. They’re rated compatible for broad spectrum.”

He crosses his arms over his broad chest.

“So, I told the oversearer. I didn’t want to report but they’re leaving me no fucking choice. Way too much happy asshole buffoonery going on lately.”

You try not to smile too obviously.

“Did you give them a List?” you ask. Karkat is famous for bringing chaos via order. He’s still trying to make House Meetings a thing, for fuck’s sake.

“Yes,” Karkat huffs.

“Was it itemized?” you tease. “Did you assign everybody Next Steps so they can check in next week. Status report: we haven’t done anything?”

He flips you off.

“Look, nothing would give me more joy than winnowing out the customer population. But unfortunately, we need to eat. I’d rather not be culled due to someone else’s gross incompetence.”

Karkat strips off his workshirt and throws it at the laundry bin. It hits the rim and hangs there for one glorious moment, then crumples to the floor.

“Aw, from downtown!  You coulda been a contender!” you tell him. You’re on a roll with Sportsball metaphors today.

Karkat grunts and mock-shoves you off the bed, but you know he’s going to get up and fix it. He can’t stand shit laying on the floor. You’re ninety percent certain half his hate-love with Sollux is over the state of Sollux’s Redbull cans.

(Wow, that stellar math is exactly why you suck at statistics homework.)

While he’s gone, you discretely set your laptop on the floor.

“Permission to get my snuggle on,” you ask, snapping off an ironic salute. Mostly ironic. Okay, you admit, you’re a thirsty whore. Yes, hold that hand, bitch. Smooch those knuckles good. It may take a blue moon and a specific alignment of Mars and Venus to sleep without your jeans on, but you can cuddle with the best of them.

Karkat crawls back into bed and you pile onto his chest. You want to _feel_ him make The Sound. Karkat is built like a broader, stronger Pillsbury Dough boy. He’s mostly your height but twice as wide, with a pillowy belly and legs as strong as tree trunks. People who let the soft parts fool them do so at their own risk. You have personally seen him sling fifty pound sacks of rice like they are nothing.

“You know you could break me over your knee and I’d be into it,” you tell him.

Karkat rolls his eyes but he gives you what you want. He starts up that rumble deep in his chest and you feel it through your sternum, like leaning on a speaker only there’s less sound. It’s like riding in a car on a warm day, feeling the road thrum deep in your bones. The few times you’ve been in one were magical. Safe. That hum can put you to sleep even when you’re having a bad day.

One of these nights you’re going to sample his purr and play it back for him. Or pitch shift it down so you can create your own. Maybe when you get a decent mixer. There’s been some reasonable ones on Craigslist.

You nuzzle your way deeper into his not-tits, enjoying that rumble nearly in stereo. Karkat cups the side of your face with his broad hand and exhales softly, same as he does at Eridan when the fish gets too ‘wwoe-is-me’. You hum and politely lean in. The shoosh is one of those things humans aren’t supposed to understand, but you vibe with it okay enough.

His fingers flick against your jawline and you squirm a little. Ooh, the pap. The Pap Shot also gets all these dramatic closeups in troll movies, loving zoom-in angles where you can see the rain bouncing off the moirail’s fingers as they pacify someone into oblivion. Mostly it looks like patting somebody’s face and also everyone is crying.

You consider reminding Karkat that your species _doesn’t_ carry pheromone glands in your cheeks, but engh. It’s kind of cute.

“What’s the occasion?” you ask, turning your head so you can kiss his palm. From the startled breath he takes, that move is both human and troll romantic.

Karkat strokes the soft place in front of your ear. You try (and fail) to hide that it gives you goosebumps.

“Eridan told me you were upset,” he says softly.

Oh goddamn it.

“It’s all good,” you tell him. “I’m over it.”

You know Karkat too well though. He’s not about to be dissuaded. He’s got you all cuddled up and like a chump you didn’t consider the danger. You fell right into his clever Feelings Trap and you have no one but yourself to blame.

Karkat scowls.

“Did they hit on you again?  Because I swear to fuck-”

“No!” you say. “I mean. Yes, that’s the constant Situation, but that wasn’t the issue.”

Yeah, the flirting is flattering, really. You’re just...really bad at knowing what to do with it. Karkat might eat romance for breakfast, but you’re still out here with your plain old Wheaties. On purpose, because. Shit. To bend a metaphor until it breaks and gives state secrets to the opposition, the trouble is you were raised on a diet of Propaganda Flakes and shitty swords. On one hand (or ‘prong’, to be inclusive), you got the hardcore party line: rise up for Earth. Reject the invaders. On the other, you got miles and miles of raw, uncut, impudent puppet dong.

You’ve been hip deep in proboscises so many times you have no clue what ‘normal’ is.  Would you recognize it if you met it in a nice bar? Stirring up martinis and nodding ‘hey’, casual-friendly cause you work at the same office?  Or do you look down and your olive is a mannequin eye, and Normal is changing seats because shit, they might date like four other people with twee little playing card suit symbols, but at least they aren’t a _freak_.

‘Earth is for the humans’, and only human kinks, you guess.

Karkat makes an unimpressed noise and looks toward the living room. You hastily pat his face.

“It was the moulting,” you tell him. “You know humans don’t exactly tear off our skin when we’re giving each other shit. I reserve the right to wig out when Silence of the Lambs is happening in the living room.”

Karkat tilts his head like an adorable puppy trying to figure out where the ball went and see, that. That’s exactly the shit that makes you feel like an idiot.

“You didn’t know?”

Jesus Christ.

“No!  Why would I know that?”  

You throw your hands up, aware that it’s dramatic but shit. Karkat’s with Eridan, he can handle a little drama.

“You know I grew up under a rock!”

Karkat curls his lip. He shows a hell of a lot more teeth when he snarls than Eridan does.

“I know you were raised by the human equivalent of an ice weasel,” he mutters.

“I don’t know what an ice weasel is, but you’re right.”

“Egg-suck critters, skitter around, disembowel you alive on the salt plains.”

“Accurate.”

Karkat sighs and threads thick fingers through your hair, massaging the back of your head. You know he’s instinctively rooting for horns, but you can’t bother to care. Some soothing is universal.

“Moulting is how we repair ourselves,” he explains. “I think for humans, you grow random skin cells all the time. It’s why you’re so fucking dusty.”

“And hairy,” you grin. You wave a forearm. Karkat talks a big game about gross human body parts but you know he could pet your peach fuzz for hours. You guess you’re not the only one into xeno.

Karkat smacks at your arm with his free hand.

“Well, we’re tougher and definitely more _hygienic,_ but even we have to refresh skin sometimes. There’s only so many times you can take a sickle to the face before you’re a rotted out grab bag of scars.”

“Yeah, yeah, cause you’re such a death-defying badass,” you grin. You’ve seen him lose his goddamn mind over a papercut. He wrapped his entire hand in gauze tape.

“Oh hey, what’s that sound? Could it be the scuttlebus on its way to pick you up for your all-expenses paid trip to shut-the-fuck-up land?”

He shakes his head.

“Anyway. It’s normal if the Blunder Twins are peeling. They’ll be a pain in the ass for a while, but they’re always a pain in the ass.”

He gives you A Pointed Eyebrow. Oh shit. You shrivel a bit under that all-knowing tuft.

“You said it ‘wasn’t an issue’ that they hit on you, either?”

“Yeah,” you say. “I mean no. I mean, I dunno. How does negation work in that sentence?  Is it ‘yes’ because I’m agreeing it was not an issue, or ‘no’ because you’re really asking, ‘were you bothered’?”

“Wow, that is a lot of pretentious globe-fondling to avoid saying ‘yes, Karkat, I enjoyed the experience’.

“‘Yes, Karkat, I enjoyed the experience’,” you parrot back. See, Eridan, you’re not the only one who can be a dick.

“I also enjoy long walks on the beach, beats so sick they’re quarantined at hospital, and being so cool I’m emotionally frozen. There. Are you happy?”

Karkat’s chest vibrates again, soft and low. You splay your fingers out to feel it.

“I can tell them to knock it the fuck off,” he says softly. “If you’re not ready, you’re not ready.”

You shake your head directly into his softness, hiding your face against his skin.  

You wonder if he will soon peel too. If he’ll still smell the same.

“I _want_ to be ready,” you admit. “For a lot of shit. For you too.”

His breath hitches, interrupting the purr.

“It’s okay,” he says.

“Doesn’t mean I don’t want it to be better,” you tell him. “Doesn’t mean I don’t read about shit on The Internets sometimes.”

Mostly the internet is a wretched hive of truscum and pick-up artists, but you don’t have to tell him that. Karkat yells about the internet on a daily basis. The internet is also where Bro picked up half his demented ideas; you know better than to trust it too.

“Like...what?”

His voice has gone strangely breathy, like he’s somewhere in the upper atmosphere and oh. This is becoming a diamond thing, isn’t it?  You cuddled up to him in this ‘hour of need’. All you did was tell a bro the truth and here he is, platonically gagging for it. He gives you shit, but he’s so, so easy to work up.

You smile a little.

“Like sharing quadrants,” you tease. “Like getting a dude off pale while his diamond bro is in the other room. Like them in a sock pile or whatever, jamming about all the juicy details later.”

Karkat drags a hand over his own face and makes the blush-y sound.

“You slick motherfucker.”

“Hey, you started it.”

“Are you seriously two sweeps old?”

“You want me to keep going?”

“Jesus fuck yes.”

You reach up to bury a hand in his hair too, scritching your short nails over his scalp. His reaction is a lot more immediate than yours. His entire body kicks into gear, amplifying the purr that’s already in his chest. Kind of a rhythmic seizing and unclenching. It’s kind of like having your own personal massage chair. Eridan had wanted to buy one at the mall; you’d had to veto on account of no space.

(Holy shit wait, are those Brookstone massage sections like...troll pale sex shops?   You didn’t think about it at the time, but damn. Was Eridan basically trying to bring home a giant dildo? Slip that one by the human on the down-low?  That’s hilarious, you have to tell Sollux.)

“We still ought to talk about Tweedledee and Tweedledum,” Karkat says. His voice is so thick through the purr you can barely understand it, but that’s okay. Sometimes it’s easier if you’re the only one to talk.  

“Yeah, probably,” you say. “Are we going to?  Probably not.”

Karkat makes a displeased noise and lurches like he’s going to get up. Not on your watch!  You suck in a deep breath and deploy your very best ‘shoosh’.

It sounds ridiculous but he goes cross-eyed and melts.

“I’m fucking with you,” you admit. “We can jam. I just.”

You pause for a moment.

“Is it weird if I want to see what happens?  Like…if it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be. What’s the word, you know.”

“Organic?” he suggests.

“Yeah, organic. Wholesome Farmer’s Market fucking around. We play keep away, we wrestle. We screw around. It works.”

That’s right, you have fun when you don’t think about it. When your brain isn’t knotted up on should-haves and could-maybes and all the thousands of things you stew with every single day. You spent so many years artistically not giving a shit that you’re sort of behind on dealing with shit. Got a big old stack of feelings in your inbox and the boss is coming in on Monday. Just looking at the stack makes you anxious.

Maybe if you let yourself _breathe_.

“If you can’t talk about it, you shouldn’t do it,” Karkat warns.

“Then I won’t,” you tell him simply. “Until I want to. Isn’t that what ‘organic’ means?”

Karkat gives you a slightly softer version of The Eyebrow.

“Or it can be ‘douchebag wants to avoid emotional labor, avoids it by claiming that he hates labels’.”

“Touche.”

“Don’t do that, Dave. Don’t be that douchebag. That’s not quadsharing, that’s being a bulgebiter.”

You walk your fingers up higher to the soft fleshy pads surrounding Karkat’s horns. You know he despises their size, but you think they’re pretty sweet. You can get your whole hand around one at once.

You squeeze. Karkat makes a helpless sound, halfway between a squawk and a prayer.  

“How about this?” you tell him simply. “I like this.”

“Idotoo,” Karkat slurs, all one syllable.

“ _And_ we talk about it. See? I get a medal.”

Two medals, one for right now and for your past-self, who first had the guts to ask Karkat about horn stuff in the first place. You’d been scared out of your fucking mind because he’d said he’d have to talk to Eridan cause it was pale, and what if Eridan had said ‘no thank you’, or even worse, ‘catch me on the roof’, only he’d gone away and come back with ‘that’s hot so long as I get mine’. And Karkat had drawn some weirdass grids, and mostly they haven’t been necessary because of the way your three schedules already work out. Karkat and Eridan have their movie days while you’re in class, and Karkat still sleeps with you two nights in every three, and that’s going well. Right?

 (Thanks, past-Dave. You’re the real MVP. )

You keep kneading on Karkat’s hornbeds, thinking. Yeah, this ‘red’ stuff all worked out. The shitty old house is still (somehow) standing. All you got is these ‘black’ quadrants to sift through. And if you flip it turnways, well, shit. You have survived so much worse in life. Why the hell should you back down now?  A little weird flirting - even with creepy bonus spare skin - is nothing compared to the chaos you left.

Karkat yawns hard enough to pop his mandible. He’s got to be wiped. You know they’ve been running him OT three weeks. Some staff shortage something-something; if you were less inclined to gray out around clashing dishes you would probably even apply. The big pans are too much metal on metal, same reason you don’t stop by even though his cafeteria is on your same campus. 

You can give him a gift though. Something sweet to help him sleep.

“You know what?” you ask.

“What?” he mumbles.

“I’m gonna be a real good auspicious,” you say.

Karkat’s eyes are pretty almond slits. They flare only briefly.

“It’s _auspistice_ , oh my god,” he grumbles.  

You laugh.

“I know. Still fucking with you.”

He gives you the sweetest, tired smile and the finger.

“Shitbag.”

You kiss his cheek.

“Set my alarm?” he asks. His purr is cutting out at this point, all adorable and sleepy.

“Sure,” you whisper and tug the sheets up.

You rub his horn bases until he falls asleep and consider your next move.


End file.
